The Impact Scholars Program is a high-quality research program designed to support scholars to pursue a research project either by continuing work started during the Academies or by joining a project offered by one of our partner organizations. This six-month program fosters a long-term commitment to research by providing scholars with invaluable hands-on research experiences that enhance their academic and professional development. Scholars will gain deeper insights into a specific sub-domain of their chosen field, develop critical research skills, and learn how to turn data into action.
Program Structure
The Impact Scholars program runs between November 2025 and May 2026. The program is designed to be part-time, requiring scholars approximately 5 hours a week. Regular participation and consistent progress are expected to ensure meaningful contributions to the project group.
What Is Involved
- 💻Computing resources. Selected groups will be provided with computing resources until the end of the program, with a possibility of further extension if the scholars and their mentor are interested in working towards a peer-reviewed publication. Climatematch scholars will have access to LEAP Pangeo, while Neuromatch scholars will receive Colab Pro access.
- 🦉 Mentorship. We match every team to a suitable mentor who connects with the scholars synchronously and/or asynchronously at least twice a month and provides guidance, support, and feedback on their research output.
- 💼 Professional development. Scholars will have access to tailored workshops and training sessions designed to build essential skills for their research careers. Examples include hands-on sessions in version control, code sharing and project management, science communication, writing workshop, and more.
- 📝 Citable micropublication. At the end of the program, the scholars will write up their results in a micropublication that will be published on Zenodo with a DOI and shared on the program website. The scholars will also be offered a chance to share their work in their native language to increase its impact in their community.
- 🗣️ Seminar presentation. At the end of the program, scholars will give a 20-minute virtual seminar that will be advertised on Neuromatch and Climatematch social media and recorded for subsequent sharing on the Academies website.
🧑🤝🧑Community support. There will be regular check-ins from the program organisers via email and on Impact Scholars Program Discord Community Server for participants to share both successes and struggles.
Scholars’ Program Timeline
| 8 August 2025 | Applications Open |
| 2 September 2025 | Application Deadline |
| 19 September 2025 | Application Decisions |
| 21 October 2025 | Match between Groups and Mentors Released |
| 31 October 2025 | Entrance Survey Deadline |
| 3 November 2025 | Welcome Event + Q&A Session |
| Asynchronous learning | LeapFROG Workshop – Module 4: The Scientific Paper of the Future |
| 18 November 2025 | FAIR Principles Workshop – Computational Tools for Climate Science Workshop |
| 20 – 21 November 2025 | ISP Q&A session with mentors and scholars |
| December – TBD | LeapFROG Workshop – Module 7: Packaging Your Software for Sharing |
| January – TBD | LeapFROG Modules 5 & 6 – Using GitHub for Research & Sharing Reproducible Workflows |
| February – TBD | Workshop – Micropublication |
| March – TBD | Workshop – Mastering Scientific Presentations with Mike Morrison |
| 27 April 2026 | Micropublication and Summary for the General Public submission deadline |
| 12 May 2026 | Reviews on micropublication Released |
| 25 May 2026 – 31 May 2026 | Seminar presentations |
| 29 May 2026 | Revised micropublications submission deadline |
| June 2026 | Micropublications Published on Zenodo |